Keep an eye at mgovideo.com for the countdown to kickoff series that should startup that day with practice footage

Michigan at Utah : Thursday, September 3rd @ 8:30pm

Opening game of the 2015 football season

Will be televised on FS1 (Fox Sports channel)

hopefull we exact revenge on them, i hated when one of their players ran back a punt and did the Desmond Howard heisman pose in our house. He should have been layed out like Teague did to Terrell owens in Dallas. link here. End of rant.

Unless declared earlier by management, which has occurred in the past, the official close of OT Season should happen sometime within the week of the 24th of August as well (that weekend at the latest - traditionally, it ends about a week before the first game), so for those who are longing for that, your wait will not be terribly long.

That's blog-related, of course, but I thought I would mention it in case anyone was wondering.

Throughout the 2015-2016 Michigan Athletics year, are threads concerning international football (soccer) permissible off-topic threads, as long as no politics or religion sneaks into the thread?

For some of us who follow international football (soccer) and enjoy the discussions on MGoBlog about the sport, there also are several key dates coming up in the next few weeks as pre-season training comes to a close with the Community Shield match between Arsenal and Chelsea in Wembley Stadium in London (August 2), the beginning of the regular season in national leagues (August 8 in England) and in UEFA’s Champions (Group stages start September 15 and 16) and Europa leagues (Group stages start September 17), the player transfer window closes (September 1), international friendlies occur (September 3 - 10), Euro 2016 qualifying resumes (September 3) and for the USMNT both 2016 Olympics qualifying takes place (October 1 - 13) and the fourth round of CONCACAF 2018 World Cup qualifying takes place (November 9 and 17.)

bulletin board material. That game / moment was one of many embarrassments last year. Not sure if the players ever get anything but a clinical play by play view of each game, versus the big picture feel, but watching the television version of every one should have been required before spring practice. (Net: if that was ok to you / it was just a few key blocks or coverage corrections, have a nice life. If you are embarrassed and angry, and this eats at the competitor in you, you're in.)

I think that was kinda that point. Im guessing Harghbaugh doesn't want to waste time on a fan appreciation day, he'd rather the team be getting ready for the start of fall practice. However, on the other hand the athletic department/PR department didn't want to take away an event that was supposed to be for the youth. Thus the resulting 1 hour "youth" day event.

This schedule highlights how short the time actually is that Harbaugh and staff get with the players from the start of fall camp until the first game. Less than a month, and of course the hours within that month are limited.

The staff can only do so much within that timeframe. We should not be expecting the full "Harbaugh effect" the first game. It will take some time. No freak outs in Spetember please.

In his first season at Alabama, Saban went 7-6 and lost to Louisiana-Monroe late in the season. These rebuilding things can take some time.

What you will be looking at on Sep 3rd is essentially the same team you saw in the Spring Game + Rudock, Peppers, and a handful of other new or returning-from-injury-faces + less than one month of Harbaugh coaching.

While it's obviously unrealistic to expect Harbaugh to fix everything immediately, it's odd how U-M fans are always bracing for disappointment. It is possible to win without a 5th-year 5-star at every position, to actually get players to perform. Other teams do.

The past eight years appear to have convinced us that unless everything is in your favor—player experience, recruiting ratings, game location—you should prepare to be let down. Hopefully this year will put an end to that.

I fully agree with you! But at the same time I expect us to look like a completely different team! Competing at a high level and a hell of a lot more energy from the players! Can't wait to see this team and the progression through the season! I'm thinking an 8-4 season is completely do able and would be happy with that outcome. Go Blue!

I think people underestimate how big of an impact Rudock will have, and right away. Huge fan of Gardner as a person, but his QB play was poor for the most part and his biggest issue was turning the ball over. Rudock is excellent at limiting that, and that alone will improve our offense by a healthy margin.

He's not starting out of a nuclear crater like he did at Stanford. I was going to say that I figured that Saban had started out in a crater as well, but apparently they were recruiting in the top 20 for a few years before he was hired. Saban took over the Red Elephants in Jan 2007 and according to rivals their recruiting rankings were

2003 49th

2004 24th

2005 18th

2006 11th

2007 10th (hybrid recruiting class)

so he was maybe thin on RSseniors, but should have had solid seniors and RSjuniors.

Saban was 7-6, 12-2, 14-0 his first 3 seasons.

Stanford, prior to Harbaugh in 2007 was

2003 24th

2004 149th

2005 41st

2006 54th

2007 51st

Harbaugh was 4-8, 5-7, 8-5. 12-1

Michigan's recruiting prior to Harbaugh was

2012 7th

2013 5th

2014 31st

2015 50th

So... What does this tell us about expectations vis-a-vis Satan with the Red Elephants? Harbaugh should have a better team than Bama had their first year with Saban, but it still looks like there might be a couple rough years under Harbaugh.

Ok, my point is that class rankings can be misleading, and using that to assume that it will be a rough couple of years under Harbaugh is silly, IMO. And I can't imagine that Stanford was recruiting 6-8 4 star+ caliber players a cycle prior to Harbaugh's arrival.

While I agree that the team won't make a full turn around immediately, the spring game shouldn't even be in the discussion. That game was a mixture of 1st 2nd and 3rd stringers playing one another after very little practice time. That's why I like spring games where it is defense vs offense so starters can match up with starters, no hodgepodge offensive line etc. We will see a better team on 9/3 but it won't be nearly complete.